Quotes About Songwriting

'Heartless' is something Ann and I wrote together.

Write your own songs. It helps you to mean what you're singing, which will then make it mean something to listeners.

With my first three albums I did everything on my own. It was what I was used to and where I felt comfortable. I would write the lyrics and music and hide the songs from everyone until I felt confident enough for anyone to hear them.

We listened to 'Beverly Hills.' I wanted to maybe even do a real 'Africa'-type version of that, I was thinking about for a minute.

I don't sit and write records from start to finish. I write all the time, and when it's time to record you just look and see what songs you've got that could work together as a group thematically.

I might find out about a songwriter and start following them on Instagram. Within a day, we might be hanging out and feeling out whether we can work together.

We try to make air-tight, intricate songs with melodies and counter-melodies and rhythms that work together, and we try to make it as palatable as possible - something that's not difficult to listen to.

I got a little baby grand piano off Craigslist for, like, $500. It's a beautiful instrument that you hear on a bunch of the songs. That's that piano on 'Keep Your Name' and 'Work Together' and 'Little Bubble.'

I remember writing lyrics for 'Take Me to Church' for a long time before I even had a song in mind for. It's not that I was trying to write that song for a year, but sometimes you just kind of collect lyrical and musical ideas and don't actually complete the song until you feel like they work together and have a home.

I tend to have a lot of songs ready for each record I do anyway. I always have. I was thinking, the more you write, the better chance you're going to come up with a collection of stuff that is going to work together.

I would have paid out royalties if we were still working together, carrying on Bob's tradition and generating income, but that was not happening. The Wailers didn't write the songs and they had been paid for their work in the studio.

My songwriting process is painful. Songwriting is brilliant. It's a load of fun - when it works. It's really difficult as well.

I love writing songs. One of the toughest things is structure; it just works when you use verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. And as soon as you become aware of that formula, you start to have a bad conscience when you write with that particular structure.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

Some people are great lyricists, but they're terrible at melody. But I could do melodies till the cows come home.

Some artists will tell you that's all they want to do is write their own music, and that's great, but George Strait, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, they didn't write everything they recorded, and they've had major, major careers. I think it's all about the best song.

This never happens, but I was writing with my friend Ryan Hurd and Eric Arjes, and we wrote this song called 'Last Turn Home.' The next day, my publisher emailed it to Tim McGraw's label. He listened to it, and I think within the week, he went into the studio and recorded it. And that never happens.

When I wrote for Jordan Knight, I was 17 or 18, they were pretty much the only songs I was writing. By the time people like Christina or Usher came around, I was able to know that I was writing for different points of view and people that might not want to say certain things. So you have to be considerate of whichever artist you're writing for.

Pretty much at all times music motivates me. How can I say this without sounding in any way proud of myself? Obviously I've always written songs that are critical of our government, and talk about our times. Hopefully you attempt to be timeless while doing it.

My love of Green Day is on so many levels. It's their genius for songwriting, the fact that they write about very important subjects, both personal and political, and they're just a timeless band.

Writing a song is like playing a series of downs in football: Lots of rules, timing is crucial, lots of boundaries, lots of protective gear, lots of stopping and starting.

I write a tiny fraction of what I used to write. My only job used to be to just write songs, and that was a really nice job to have, but only a tiny amount of people heard those songs, and I didn't make a living from it, and eventually I begged my parents to let me move back into my room.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

'My Church' - that was really the tipping point of me going from songwriter to artist.